Much better now (hotmail.com)

Member Name: Stalin

Product:	hotmail.com
Date:	28/07/01 (21 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clean, attractive interface, Very usable, Quite a few features for web mail

Disadvantages: Still not as advanced as a real e-mail client, Still some ads and other annoyances

Hotmail has earned itself I bit of an iffy reputation. People think of it as a newbie service with few features and a clunky interface, dominated by links to MSN and adverts. It has evolved considerably from this state, however, incorporating many new features over the years. Now, it has had a total redesign which makes it far more usable. All the crap has been removed, bar one list of links on the right hand side of the page, leaving the rest of your screen for e-mail. You get easy access to the most important screens in a single click (compose, inbox, addresses etc). Mailboxes are well designed, listing the standard info such as sender, subject and so on, with no useless information. Message composition has a similarly clear interface, with only the standard address, subject, cc and other basic fields. This simplicity may annoy some, but I think it makes the whole system far easier and quicker to use. The redesign has also made it look much nicer, with an aqua theme running throughout. It is attractive without getting in the way. It does have some nice extras too, such as automatically scanning attachments for viruses (although I cannot vouch for how effective this is). It has basic junk mail filtering which is adequate for most. My favourite feature, however, is the ability to collect mail from other POP3 accounts. This means that managing multiple e-mail accounts is made easier. The only problem with this is that you can only have up to 4 POP3 accounts, which might not be enough.

All in all, this still does not have that many advanced features, but it has most certainly improved, and it will continue to do so. If you need a web mail account, this is the one to go for.

Summary: